How Visual Information Affects a Spatial Task

To examine the information content of mental representations of three-dimensional objects, 21 participants performed a mental rotation task with the classic Shepard and Metzler (1971) figures. We compared conditions in which the figures were monochromatic, a condition in which they were colored consistently, and a condition in which they were colored inconsistently. Color affected performance of participants with low spatial ability but not those with high spatial ability. This suggests that individuals with high spatial ability construct more schematic spatial mental representations for this task, whereas individuals with low spatial ability construct representations that include both visual and spatial information.